Pterodactyl
by theWeekendSquared
Summary: How come you can never hear a pterodactyl pissing all over your dreams? Because the 'P' is silent. Because I fell in love with him. Because I'm the idiot.


**This is the new, updated version of Pterodactyl. I posted it when it was still really rough, and while it's still not perfect, it's a lot less rough now. It's also much longer, has different sub-themes, and is really not the same read as it was before.**

* * *

I've slept in this bed for god knows how many nights.

I've stayed awake, counting the little cracks on the ceiling, imperfections that would drive interior designers insane, for so many hours of my life. And every time I do it, there seems to be a new crack. A fresh chasm in the land of Max's Roof. Although I guess it's more a ceiling than a roof.

My eyes hunt for a new fissure until I find it, hiding in the corner of the ceiling. It's skinny, long, and jagged –but I guess that describes most cracks. Great. Now I feel bad for not having a larger litany of words to describe cracks on the ceiling.

When the Erasers got here, they ravaged the ground floor. The sofa had been clawed so many times that it was just a mess of stuffing and wooden splinters. The kitchen had been blown to smithereens. There were so many holes in the walls that Iggy joked that they had written _dickbutt_ in large-scale Braille in the living room.

I don't believe Erasers have a sense of humor, but they do have a sense of irony. Because while all the other rooms were virtually destroyed, my old room in the letter E house was left untouched.

Except for that new crack on the ceiling.

Someone's calling my name downstairs. I raise my head slightly, and then drop it back down on my dusty old pillow. Getting up is probably not going to be worth it. I don't have the emotional wherewithal to face everyone right now. Clouds of dust float up around me, and I hold back a sneeze. I haven't set foot in this room in ten years, and nothing in it has changed except for the accumulation of dust and possibly a dangerous level of asbestos.

As for me…

I'm saved from delving into that huge black hole of thoughts by a knock on the door.

"Come in."

The door opens, squeaking a little more on its hinges than I remember. Then again, it's been ten years, and so much has happened within that decade that I don't really remember things like how much the door creaks on opening. A set of heavy footsteps come in, and my heart quickens slightly when I realize who they belong to.

A flash of blond hair glints in the late afternoon sunlight as Dylan sits down on the edge of my bed. I wonder if he remembers how many nights we slept together in here. Me in the bed, him on the floor. "You sure you're not coming?" In the past ten years, his voice is the one thing that hasn't changed. Still husky, still quiet.

"I'm sure."

Dylan shifts his position on the bed slightly, and the resultant creak triggers me to sit up and brush the dust off of my clothes. I watch his eyes as they trace memories in this room. I can tell he remembers those nights. "Total and Akila want you to come."

"You can't guilt me," I say, smirking. "Besides, Mom only purchased eight tickets."

"It's their anniversary, Max. And anyways, I'm sure she wasn't intending for Marcus to come… or to even exist."

I swing my legs over the edge of the bed so that I'm sitting upright next to him. After a pause, Dylan puts an arm around my shoulder, and I lean on his shoulder, feeling his warmth. "Nudge really likes him," I say. "And he's a hell of a lot better than that Armenian guy –"

"Francis. Yeah, I hated him. He was just so… _slow_."

I smile slightly and watch particles of dust as they float towards the ground. "Well, he _was_ part turtle."

Dylan elbows me lightly. "You know what I mean."

I shrug, running my hand through my hair. I've cut it, or tried to, but it wouldn't be my hair without its usual tangles, snarls, and now dust. "It's not dandruff." I say out loud, scratching it.

Dylan laughs, and we lapse into silence. It's not angry silence, or uncomfortable silence. Rather, it's one of those rare peaceful silences. The way silence was meant to be experienced.

Truth is, I would love nothing more to go to Disneyland, to ride Space Mountain and eat cotton candy while also listening to It's a Small World over and over. I would love to ride the train and to visit Minnie and Mickey, pretending that everything in my life is totally fine. But I can't, because everything is not totally fine. There's a line that heavily divides _peaceful_ and _fine_. And while I've never been more peaceful in my life, I am most certainly not fine.

Everyone else seems to be, though.

Ten years of happiness… it's a miracle Total and Akila lasted this long, considering that one human year is about seven dog years. They've been with each other for seventy years, and they haven't ripped each others' throats out yet. What else is love?

Dylan and I… there are times when he can be the sweetest thing. He can make me feel like a princess, and a goddess, and the only thing that matters to him in the whole world. He'll know exactly what I want, and I'll have it within moments. He can truly act like my perfect other half.

There are also times when he can be clueless. Clueless and annoying and downright stupid and I just want to pummel him because he doesn't understand why I am so hesitant to kiss him, why I flinch at his touch sometimes, why I have these fits of anger and hostility and why sometimes I don't want him in my bed, my house, or my life.

Dylan is not my perfect other half.

I deluded myself for a few months, following the wake of Fang's departure. I almost convinced myself. It wasn't hard to find the good in him, not when he kept pulling things like the treehouse. It was there, and it was blatantly obvious, but no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't find perfection.

I try to love him. I try to be nice and kind and give everything to him like he so clearly does for me. I will never stop trying to love him.

But it's been ten years. While we're good together, while we have fun together, while I most certainly would be lost without him, I've never said _I love you_ to Dylan and I don't know if I ever will.

I blink hard and stand up abruptly, flinging Dylan's arm away from me as though it's suddenly become red-hot. Thoughts like this are exactly why I don't like silences, even if they're peaceful. "We should go downstairs," I say, composing my features into some semblance of sanity. "I have to say goodbye to the others."

Dylan nods and follows me out of my old room, into the ravaged hallway, down the decrepit stairs, and into the despoiled kitchen where the rest of the flock is in varying degrees of readiness.

I sneak up behind Iggy and Ella who are sharing a tender moment in the corner of the kitchen. Iggy's hand is on Ella's swollen abdomen and she has to stand up on her tiptoes to throw her arms around his neck because he's so tall. They both jump when I speak. "Should you even be traveling in your condition, El?" I ask her, smirking.

Ella smiles, tucking a strand of her soft brown hair behind her ear. "I'm carrying a child, not _dying_ , Max. But thanks for your concern."

"Well… go easy on the cotton candy," I tell her. "And take lots of pictures to show Teddy later." I gesture to her abdomen.

"Yeah, because he'll want to see what a bombshell his dad is," Iggy interjects, and Ella giggles.

I clap Iggy on the back. "Please don't blow up anything."

"I won't," he says airily. I can't read his eyes underneath his sunglasses.

" _Iggy_."

" _Max_ ," he mimics my tone, his hands raised in the air. "I can't believe you don't trust me."

"This is the exact stove that you nearly blew up when you were trying to make it more energy efficient." I gesture to the charred remains of the stove next to me. "Remember?"

I guide his hand towards the splintered metal, and grow silent with him as he runs his hands across it. "I remember," he says finally. "Good times, eh?"

"The best. Anyways, it's not _you_ I don't trust. I eye the red duffel bag which boasts a nametag that reads _Gassy_. "Where are the Wonder Twins, anyway?"

"We're not twins; I'm _two years_ older than her!" Gazzy yells, and I turn around to grin at him. He's grown taller than me, which was just a matter of time. I think he passed the Max benchmark at least five years ago. "I found my old bombs, by the way! I wonder if they still work."

"Hopefully they won't. And you might be two years older, but you still can't spell." I point to the nametag on his luggage, and Gazzy's face grows horrified as he sees what he's done.

"Oh no…"

Angel shrugs. "Well, you _are_ dyslexic. I told you so when you accidentally went to Geography 405 instead of Geology 101." Gazzy scowls at his sister, and she shrugs. "I don't care if you want me to 'suck a dick'. You knew this would happen."

"Where are Nudge and Sloan?" I ask, interrupting Gazzy as he opens his mouth to retort.

Angel flips her long honey-blonde hair and points to the trees in the distance. "In the car. Nudge didn't think she could face being back here."

I smile ruefully. "Well, tell her I said bye," I say, helping Ella with her luggage. "Tell her also that I don't want any souvenirs. I don't want her to go overboard with the gifts again like she did when Jacob took her to Milan. I don't know where she finds these guys, anyway."

Angel grins, knowing that I'm remembering the Dolce and Gabbana vibrator. "Well, she's gorgeous, so it's not that big of a mystery. I'll keep her on track."

I wave goodbye to Gazzy and Iggy after I have them swear to me on their lives that they aren't going to blow anything up, I hug Angel and Ella goodbye, and then it's just me and Dylan again.

I look into his bluest of blue eyes. "Have fun."

His lips curl into a smirk. "I'll try. You'll be okay here, by yourself?"

I roll my eyes. "Jeez. You're leaving for three days, not a lifetime. I just need some space. I know you understand."

Dylan searches my face with his penetrating stare, but finds nothing. Sighing, he holds his arms out and I walk into them without hesitation. "Stay safe," he whispers into my hair, and I nod, hugging him back.

And then the door is closing and he's gone.

To Disneyland, the happiest place on Earth.

Although I happen to be standing in _my_ happiest place on Earth right now. We arrived here a few hours ago on my insistence, like a kind of pit stop on the way to the actual vacation, and my mom had agreed since she knew how stubborn I could get sometimes.

I had flown here ahead of everybody with my superspeed. It had been a surprisingly short trip, and I was in no way mentally prepared for the damage. I knew that the Erasers had gone to town on this place as soon as the flock and I had vacated it, but I didn't expect the carnage to be so extreme.

Despite the fact that our old house has gone to shit, I still remember all the good times the flock and I had here.

The exact expression on Iggy's face when I tried making him a cake for his birthday and I ended up setting the stove on fire by accident. The lilt of Angel's perfect laugh when we all rolled around in the strawberry patches together. The sights, the feelings, and the emotions I had here, when I was actually happy, here in my happiest place on Earth.

The really rich part about all this is that even though the world is saved, there are no more Erasers trying to kill my family, and I have a steady… relationship, I can't say that I'm happy. It used to only take a few charred lumps of desert rat to satisfy me, and now… now I don't think anything ever could.

So I trudge through the house aimlessly, spending a few hours touching anything and everything I can. I kneel down and pick up a broken picture frame I hadn't noticed before, because it had been kicked underneath the pile of rubble that was the couch. The glass is utterly cracked and destroyed, but I can still make out the picture inside. It's a picture of the flock, smiling happily into the camera. I stare at the picture, memories hitting me like a sack of wet concrete. There's the Gasman, so tiny that he could sit on top of Iggy's shoulders with no problem. There's me, with my arms around a tinier Nudge, both of us looking positively ecstatic just to be alive. And there's Fang… Fang has his arms wrapped around Angel so protectively that tears spring into my eyes.

I haven't cried over him. I promised myself that I wouldn't be _that girl_ , that girl that just sits in trees and cries about her boyfriend leaving her while the entire world around her goes to pieces.

The Flock and I, we didn't take pictures or selfies or anything while on the run, for obvious reasons. A natural side effect of that is there are no pictures around. Which is good, because If there are no pictures around, I don't have to see his face.

But there he is all of a sudden, his arms wrapped around baby Angel and his dark eyes staring into the camera like a promise. A promise that he would be there to protect the flock for the rest of his life. And it hits me that he broke that unspoken promise. Because I don't know where Fang is.

For once, I am all alone.

And then I hear a knock on the door.

Frowning, I set the picture gently on the counter and blink furiously to scare away any beginnings of tears. Who can that be? This house isn't exactly in the middle of the street for random passersby to come by. And all the Erasers are gone –I personally saw to that, and look what it cost me.

I am reckless. I've always been. So without thinking, I open the door to find myself face to face with… myself.

It takes a moment for me to register that the girl standing on the front porch is not me. She's got shorter hair, almost as short as a boy's, with the tips dyed an electric shade of blue. She's a tiny bit taller than me, if that's even possible. Her eyes are not the same color as mine. Her expression is not the same as mine. I'm standing there with my mouth open, unsure if I can even figure out how to make words, while she looks at me like she's seen me a thousand times before. Well… every time she looks in a mirror, she has.

"You know, I figured you'd be here," she says after a pause, and my jaw snaps shut. Because while she might look like me, that voice is not mine. It's higher, more nasal, and suddenly I am reminded of how much I hate her.

"Get out," I say harshly, but to my horror my voice comes out all wobbly. I clear my throat and try again. "Get out."

She doesn't get out, however. Because I remember all too well that neither of us is good at following directions. "No."

"Well, I don't want you here," I say in that same harsh voice.

She shrugs. "I didn't expect you to welcome me with open arms, or anything."

She doesn't understand. It's paining me to even _look_ at her. And the idea that I could invite her into _my_ letter E house with _my_ strawberry patch and _my_ old rusty oven is almost unfathomable. "Get out," I say again, lamely, and I wish my vocabulary didn't shrink to those two words.

"Max," she says, and I wince and take a step back when she says my name. "I'm sorry."

I blink furiously to keep the tears from penetrating my inner wall of strength. "That's not good enough."

She shoves her hands deep into her pockets. "It wasn't my fault. And you know that."

My guard is falling down. The emotions are winning. I can't keep up this stoic façade much longer. "I know. That's why I hate you." And a tear slips from the corner of my eye. The first of many, I can tell.

"Max," she says again, and I don't want to hear any more of it.

"Ten years. Do you have children? Did you get married? Did he promise to love you and never leave you and that you were his entire world?" My harsh voice aims to cut her like knives under her skin, and I can tell I'm making her beyond uncomfortable.

"No, no, and… no. He had already promised that to someone else."

"Then why –"

"He regretted it from the minute he left."

" _Bullshit_."

Her face flinches slightly. I can see the lines, the premature wrinkles forming around her eyes, around her lips. These ten years have taken a toll on her. Do I look just like that? "No."

"He didn't come back. It was all a load of bullshit. Which I understand. I understand why he didn't want me. I was too bossy, too demanding, too controlling. We had known each other since we were kids, and had seen each other naked at the age of two. If he left because he didn't want me in that way, I understand even though it would break my heart. What I don't understand is how he could leave _them_. They loved him. They loved him more than he loved them, that's clear to me."

"That's not –"

"Nudge would lock herself in the bathroom and cry for hours on end. Iggy's chocolate cakes began to taste like crap, like he stopped caring. Angel almost became suicidal. Gazzy lost his ability to _mimic_. Do you know how long it took for them to stop crying at night? To resume normal eating habits? Do you know how long it took for them to move on? And In the meantime, _he_ was off hooking up with…" I trail off, looking her in the eye. "So don't give me that bullshit about how he wanted to come back. He didn't want us."

She's shaking her head now, eyes glistening with tears. "You don't understand."

"I think I do."

"Well, you don't."

We glare at each other for a moment, and it strikes me that her glare is different than mine. Mine is a direct, laser-focused glower that I've perfected over the years. Hers is more jumbled, crazier, but it still delivers the same message. And then I say, "Come in."

And she comes in.

It's strange, almost alien, the way she stands hugging herself in the middle of the wrecked foyer, completely out of place in this rugged landscape. Which is ridiculous. She looks like me. If she looks out of place here, it's not a far cry from what I must look like.

"You're an idiot."

I blink at the unprecedented words. "Huh?"

"Want me to say it again?"

"Maybe with some context."

"How can you not see that he so clearly loved you? How can you not see how sorry he was? How can you be so blind to just… write him off like he never even existed?"

I sigh, and reach for the picture on the counter. "Because hating him is the only way I can cope with what happened."

She gazes at the picture I'm offering her, and her eyes soften slightly. "That's horrible."

"Not as horrible as what he did."

"He didn't have a choice. You have no idea how sorry –"

"Oh, he had a choice." I snatch the picture back from her. I somehow don't want her peering in on my intimate memories with my family. "How come you can never hear a pterodactyl pissing all over your dreams?" I don't wait for her to respond, I keep plowing forward. "Because the 'P' is silent. Like him. He was my pterodactyl. He was proof that good things could still exist even in such a twisted world. He was a miracle –a dinosaur that survived extinction. He was _my_ miracle, when I wasn't even supposed to have one because we were all mutants that weren't even supposed to survive. But he tore apart my dreams of us having a future together. He… he… he just pissed on everything we'd built. He built me up and then… I fell."

She frowns. "Why a pterodactyl?"

I shrug, and for the first time a flicker of a grin flits across my face. "So I could make that corny joke, mostly."

I look at her and she snorts. "Been practicing that, have you? It doesn't matter. You fell in love with him. You're the idiot."

"That's true," I mutter, and I feel another shadow of a smile come to my lips. It's bizarre. Why am I laughing about something so serious to the person that I'm supposed hate the most? But passes as quickly as it arrives, however.

"And I'm the idiot, too," she says quietly. "I can't explain to you how much it hurt to see him pine for you day after day."

"But he must have eventually given up. And then you kissed and made up, right?" I ask, not wanting to hear the answer.

And she smiles sadly. "Why do you think I'm here, Max?"

 _To give me cookies_. _And maybe a baby announcement._ "I'm sure I don't want to know," I say after a pause. "What're you… I mean, what –"

"I just want you to know that he was a great leader. A little unsure of himself at first, but what did you expect? He had just left his entire family, his home, everything he had ever known to come and start a new life with a new group of people he barely trusted. And he did it all to protect you."

I wish I could stop time so I would never have to hear the answer because I'm 110 percent sure what she's about to say and I'm 110 percent sure that I absolutely don't want to hear it -

"Max," she said softly. "He's gone."

I blink once, twice, and then three times. "You're lying," I say, and I start looking around the room wildly, as if this is all some horrible, twisted joke and Fang is actually hiding underneath the destroyed couch.

"He went in the most valiant way possible. There was a group of kids in a burning building that the Doomsday Group protesters set on fire and he singlehandedly dived in to save them… he got them all out, but unfortunately, he couldn't save himself."

I shake my head wildly. "No. No, you're lying."

"I can't lie to you," she says softly. "You'd see right through me. You know me better than anyone else."

"He can't be dead. The world is saved. He can't be _dead_."

She sighs. "The world might be saved, but that doesn't make it any fairer."

I shake my head. "No. No. I can't… he's not dead. He's not dead."

"Max –"

"Stop. Stop it. He's not dead. Fang's not dead."

"I know you're in denial. So was I. I still am –"

"Why the _hell_ did you wait _ten fucking years_ to tell me?!" I roar, suddenly seized by a wave of rage so fierce that I pick up the photo of the Flock smiling happily and hurl it at her as hard as I can. She ducks but it still clips her in the forehead, opening a small gash. "Ten _years_! I could've had a funeral! I could've moved on! YOU COWARD!"

"I –"

"You were _afraid_ to tell me! You were _scared_ of my reaction! YOU'RE A COWARD!" I scream, pummeling my fist into the wall, bruising my knuckles. I'm not strong enough to create holes in the wall. I stare, confused, at the blood for a second before I drive my fist into the wall again and again, until each spike of pain gets dimmer and dimmer, until the blood gushing from my knuckles smears on the wall like a morbid reminder of death.

"Max, _stop it_!" she screams, and I stare at her, tears pouring down my face with the same velocity as the blood pouring down my knuckles and the blood trickling down her forehead. I deserve every second of this pain, and more. While Fang risked his life to save children from certain death in a fire, I moped around thinking that he left because he _hated_ me. I didn't go after him. I didn't believe in his love for me. I don't deserve to be sad. Because I don't deserve Fang. What I do deserve is to smash my fist into the wall a few hundred more times, until my arm falls off. Because _I'm_ the coward. _I'm_ the one who was afraid of being alone. _I'm_ the one that gave up on Fang and chose Dylan. _I'm_ the coward, and the idiot, and the fool, and everything else.

"I never even got to say goodbye," I whisper, sinking down onto the ground.

She sits down next to me. "He never forgot you, you know."

I sniff as she pulls out from her jacket a lump of metal –a very old, very battered laptop. My eyes widen as she hands it over to me.

"His?" I ask quietly, and she nods.

"I know you don't read his blog. He told me you never read his blog. But… I think you'll want to read it now."

"Why are you giving me this?" I ask her quietly.

She smiles sadly. "He told me that the password was something he wanted to say to someone for a very long time. I couldn't think what that might be. He never really talked to me, besides to talk about you, anyways. He never saw me as more than a reflection of you, no matter how much he tried to hide it. It's obvious who this laptop is for."

I stare at the dented, bruised, dirty laptop that we had stolen from Itex together, all those years ago. With my non-injured hand, I open the lid slowly, fingers trembling. A simple screen shows up, with two words. _Enter Password_.

And with my shaking, non-bruised hand, I slowly type, _I'm sorry_.

The screen goes black after I hit enter.

That's it, then. I never truly understood Fang. I never truly deserved him. Whatever time we had together was a mistake, and he was the idiot for ever loving me and trusting me. I hate him. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him –

"Max, wait," she says, as I make to get up. And I notice the laptop screen getting brighter and brighter, until at last, with an almighty clinking, it lights up completely and I am faced with Fang's desktop screen.

I look up triumphantly to see that she's gone, and the front door is swinging on its hinges.

I set the laptop down on the ground. I'm tired of not getting to say goodbye. I pull the door open, nearly yanking the weathered wood out of its hinges. I see her –a set of white wings flapping in the distance.

 _Max II_ , I think, but that isn't her name. Time to face the facts. Her name is Maya.

"Maya!" I yell, squinting in the bright colors of the sunset. "Maya!"

Something tells me that she's hearing me. We all have enhanced hearing, after all. But she won't come back. She did what she came here to do, and now she doesn't have to live in my shadow anymore. This was her redemption. She gave me this laptop, because she knows that Fang loved me. She doesn't deserve to love someone who doesn't love her. She doesn't deserve to hang around someone she was cloned after. She deserves to be happy.

And so I don't fly after her.

Instead, I walk back inside the house, completely silent.

Heart thumping, I pick up the laptop once more and I turn my attention to the screen. There's only one folder there.

 _For Max._

I click on it, and am immediately overwhelmed with hundreds of documents. Despite myself, I smile and put a hand over my mouth when I see pictures, documents, poems, song lyrics, blog posts, letters... For me.

…

 _Letter 1: In Which I Feel Like a Total Idiot. And I Miss Total._

 _Hey, Max._

 _It's a bright day. I'm in one of my better moods, because after months of running around and doing stupid blog posts, I finally have a coherent plan which is much more elaborate than stealing Pepsi from a gas station convenience store. You would not believe how thirsty Holden can get, and I'm pretty sure his burps can rival Gazzy's._

 _I alone can feel the restlessness of the others. They want to do_ things _, they want to be out there saving the world, and frankly, I'm amazed that they haven't left already._

 _Leaving is easy._

 _You'll be pleased to know that the repercussions of it and the horrible feelings and the nightmares that plague me day and night are not._

 _But there's no leaving today. Today I have a plan._

 _Crap, this hunk-o'-junk's about to conk out. Remind me why we didn't steal a better laptop when we had the chance._

 _…_

 _Letter 17: In Which I Bitch About My Gang (I'm A Poet Without Even Knowing It)_

 _Ratchet's lazy, Kate's a worrywart, and Holden's so quiet he's almost invisible. But out of all the members of this gang, Star's easily the most abrasive. I'm lucky I have the ability to conceal my feelings behind an iron-hard wall (note the sarcasm), because sometimes she speaks without thinking. Or here's a thought – maybe she knows exactly what she's saying and is carefully calculating her every word just to throw me on edge._

 _I never had these kinds of thoughts with the Flock. And it doesn't matter how long it had been since I left you –you guys cross my mind every second of every day. I can't help comparing the new one with the old one. I can't help comparing my leadership with your leadership. You've got me totally beaten there. I'll never understand how you managed to keep us in shape all these years without bringing out a whip._

 _Max, I spend every second of every day ruefully thinking about how stupid I was to leave behind the one family that never deserted me, and to leave behind the one person that truly understood me._

 _Because no one could ever replace you. Not even Maya. Maya is always by my side and is always there for me. She always knows what to say and always knows when to stop talking. But I'm an idiot, and I will always be an idiot. I can't let go of the past, not when you're in it, and I can't let go of the future because then what will I have? A few frying pans and a kickass leather jacket. I've put myself in limbo._

 _…_

 _Letter 53: In Which I Have an Interesting Conversation, Transcribed Below_

 _I_ am _smart. That's why we're not going to be holding up any picket signs. The Doomsday Group is planning on releasing a virus that will kill ninety-nine percent of the world's population, and they are planning to so quite quickly. Currently, there is only one known vial of the virus in existence, and it resides at the Doomsday Group headquarters in the penthouse of a very secure building in Manhattan. We're going to steal it._

 _Nudge will be please to know that I'm getting used to speaking more and more, with me being the leader and all. But I'll never get used to the stunned faces that greet me at the end of one of my speeches._

 _Anyway, today, as the others meekly follow my orders_ (as if) _, Maya sidles up to me and brushes my arm lightly with her fingertips, causing me to jump slightly. She smiles at my expression. "Fang," she said, in her light, breathy voice, so different than your deeper, louder one._

 _"Yeah." That's me talking there._

 _"If this plan works… would we technically be saving the world?"_

 _"You know it's not that simple. This is just a small part of a small organization that's part of a larger group of baddies all intent on watching the world burn. They're going to have a plan B. And a plan C. All the way up until X, probably."_

 _Maya nods, still smiling. "Yeah, but… it's still helping. And it gives us hope that things will turn out for the better, right?"_

 _"You know, you're pretty optimistic, for someone who grew up in a cage."_

 _"_ You _grew up in a cage."_

 _"Yeah, but I'm a realist, not an optimist."_

 _And Maya chuckles softly and brushes my cheek with her soft hand. "I'll get you there."_

 _It's killing me, Max. You have no idea how much I wish you were here with me. That you were the one promising me a better future, even though it's so out of character for you that I'd suspect something was up immediately. I'd test to see if it was really you by tempting you with chocolate chip cookies._

 _…_

 _Letter 121: In Which I Say Something I've Never Said Before, And It's Probably Too Late._

 _Max, I love you._

 _I don't understand why it was so goddamn hard for me to say in person. I love you. I love you so damn much that I've been writing these letters to you that I'm never going to send because I know you'll never open them. And that's okay._

 _I blew it. I know I blew it and I know you hate me and I know you want to choose Dylan because he's the guy that's actually there, and to that I say, go for it. He makes you happy. I know that. He'll never leave you. I know that. He's steady, and you need steady. I know that._

 _But I hope you'll never forget me._

 _Because if there's one thing I am, it's sorry. So sorry._

 _I love you._

 _Always and forever._

 _P.S. I really miss Iggy's cooking._

 _P.P.S And Nudge's incessant chattering._

 _P.P.P.S And Gazzy's contraption of the day._

 _P.P.P.P.S And Angel's innocent Bambi eyes._

 _P.P.P.P.P.S I'm doing all the cooking myself now, and it's not going that amazing. To put a long story short, we've all been living off of McDonald's for the past few weeks, and I don't know how much longer we can survive like this._

 _…_

Letter 1: In Which I Write My Very First Obituary

You left me. You left me and you just _had_ to dive into that fire like a fucking hero, didn't you? On the outside, you were a stoic, unfeeling rock. But in reality, you cared too much about those kids. You cared too much. That's why you're dead. You're dead. And I didn't know about it for nearly ten years.

I'm with Dylan… and I'm telling you this because I know that even though you hated him, you'd rather I be with him than anyone else. He gives a mean back rub, which was something you'd never mastered (you have to rub _counterclockwise_ , genius!). But most importantly, he was there for me when I needed him, and he's there for me now. You don't have to worry. I'm in good hands.

Am I happy? That's a good question. I can't answer it right now. I don't think I'll ever be able to answer that.

Am I peaceful? Not anymore. I'm going to have nightmares for the rest of my life, thanks for that.

Am I okay?

You know what? I think I am.

I'm not going to cry. That's not what you want. You left so I could live.

I'm going to try to move on. I know I might never be able to do it fully, but you and me, we weren't just a fling. We weren't just something to forget. So I won't forget.

And when my time comes, I hope I'll go down just as heroically as you did. Then maybe I'll be able to find you up there in the clouds. And maybe we can pick up the pieces. But I'll tell you this now –there are a lot of pieces.

I'm sorry we never got to grow old together.

I'm sorry.

I love you, and I always will.

P.S. I'm about to start a bakery. Well, it's actually more of a sham bakery. It's a front for my budding pot business. Kidding! I'm actually working for my mom for the CSM -and she finally gets to boss me around, which you can bet I love.

P.P.S. Iggy loves you. His new recipe for New York cheesecake tastes divine -a literal slice of heaven. Also you're now an uncle to baby Theodore Fang Martinez, who's being told thrilling stories about how macho and awesome his uncle is.

P.P.P.S. Nudge loves you. She talks passionately about things like feminism and gun control rather than movie stars and clothes. She's auditioning to be on Oprah, and I think she'll get in -she's already our little celebrity.

P.P.P.P.S. Gazzy loves you. He can mimic parrots now, so it's like an endless circle of mimicking hell. Is that irony or what? Also he's writing a book -How to Make Bombs out of Nearly Anything. It presold more than ten thousand copies, and all he wrote so far was _Step One: Acquire a set of bird wings_.

P.P.P.P.P.S Angel loves you. She's still smarter than everyone else, and she's keeping everyone else on track. She's about to graduate college _summa cum laude._ She's on track to get her PhD before she turns twenty, which scares the crap out of me.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Don't worry. I'll see you again.


End file.
